Our Strategy, your ideal student: learning for employability

1
Our Strategy, your ideal student learning for
employability

• How one University is implementing its
  employability strategy at the local level
• Presenter Dr Phil Margham
• Director of Academic Innovation, JMU

2
JMU Employability Strategy

• Curricular embedding of Generic and Career
  Management skills
• PDP culture of reflective practice
• WBL opportunities in all taught UG programmes

3
The Employability Culture

• Permeation of employability skills throughout
  curriculum
• Expanded range of delivery and assessment styles
  linked to employability agenda
• Perceived need to make skills development, and
  links to employment, a more explicit process.

4
Your ideal student

• risk taker
• self motivated
• judgement
• adaptable
• reflective
• people skills

5
Some local exemplars

• BA Applied Consumer Studies
• BSc Coaching Science
• Cert HE Sports Development
• FD Tourism Culture

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BA Consumer Studies

• Strong employer involvement with programme
  design.

• Role of Tutorial Modulediagnosis, target
  setting via PDP, employment demands.

• Two placements, 12c and 24c. WBL not WBE.
  Heavy investment in staff visits.

• Strong links with industry no-one is just an
  academic

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BSc Coaching Science

• Emphasis on reflective practice, changing WBE to
  WBL.

• Perceived synergy between focusing on
  employability inputs and research output.

• Lessons learnt from Coaching Science translated
  to other Sports Science courses.

• Confidence that skills learned from placement do
  transfer into employment.

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Reflective Practice with Science students

• Theory of reflective techniques, practice.

• Objective setting via learning agreement.

• Reflective journal on placements.

• Weekly links with tutors (action learning).

• Reflective essay as part of assessment.

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Employability the best
we can hope for

• There comes a point in students lives when they
  have to make a step-change HE can take them so
  far, but they then have to deal with the
  challenges that employment throws up.
• Mantz Yorke (2004)
• LTSN Generic Centre Learning
  Employment Series

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classic
11
modern
classic
12
modern
learning _at_ work
classic
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CertHE Sports Development

• Open curriculum with 50 negotiated learning.

• Tension between needs of employer (training) and
  University (learning).

• Mix of students, many graduates, others non-HE
  experience.

• All employed in sports areas in some capacity.
  Usually recruited in employment groups.

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Some quotes from Dave Haskins (course leader)
The more we move towards an employability focus,
the more difficult it is for the University.
Cert HE is not teaching heavy, but it certainly
is admin heavy.
Delivery through action learning broadens their
view of the world within a pedagogical structure.
Employers could not replicate this.
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FD Tourism Culture

• Collaborative provision of FD, involving JMU and
  several FE partners, each specialising to limited
  extent.
• As usual, concern about articulation with an
  honours degree.
• Possible for FD students to join the BA Leisure
  Tourism programmes, but....

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FD Hons Top-Up by WBL
L3 based in the work-place(s).
Regular (1 day/week) attendance at college.
Resources geared to learning negotiation and
student support.
Product highly-developed employee with honours
graduate attributes.
No debts?
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Conclusions

• Questions?